


Compromise

by tiamatv



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Castiel Deals With Having Human Emotions (Supernatural), Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Future Fic, M/M, Repressed Bisexual Dean Winchester, coming to terms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28121790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiamatv/pseuds/tiamatv
Summary: It wasn't uncommon for Dean to find himself tracking down an ex-angel in their underground home in the middle of the night, because Cas got nightmares.  Ten years ago, though, if anyone had told Dean this would become a semi-regular occurrence in his life, he’d probably have laughed so hard, his beer would have come out of his nose.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 48
Kudos: 233





	Compromise

**Author's Note:**

> So... I wrote this back in... September? With the plan to edit and post it when Promptober released its hold on me. It was the first SPN 'fic I wrote entirely by hand, because I find that my style is a little different when I do that. At the time I finished it, I hadn't seen any of S15 (or, I think, much of S14) yet. So it is not canon compliant past early S14.
> 
> Then 15x18 came out. Then the finale. And I'm not sure if I just sort of lost faith, or forgot about the existence of this 'fic altogether because canon was being so insane. I unearthed it by accident today; while I'm still not sure about where it fits into my heart in a post-finale world, I'm told that all the soft endings are necessary, so here is one more.
> 
> Betaed by the wonderful [FriendofCarlotta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendofCarlotta/pseuds/FriendofCarlotta), who is so incredibly patient with me, my flailing, and my typos.

Dean Winchester was busy trying to track down an ex-angel, somewhere in the home they shared. Okay, the home happened to be a historic underground bunker filled with some of the most badass magical shit that had ever been shat, and Dean was _almost_ sure that some of the rooms had their own personalities, but that wasn’t the point. Or maybe it was the point.

If anyone had told Dean a decade ago that all this would become a semi-regular occurrence in his life, he’d probably have laughed so hard, his beer would have come out of his nose.

Wait, no. A decade ago, he’d already met Cas. Jesus, talk about how time had flown. Except back then, Sam had been a demon blood addict, Dean had still been as fresh-faced and sparkly-eyed as someone just dragged out of the pits of Hell could be, and Cas hadn’t figured out how to comb his hair or tie his tie properly. Or, y’know. Smile.

They hadn’t even stopped an _apocalypse_ yet. Not even one. _Fuck_.

Shit, that _had_ been a long time ago.

But no, Dean still would’ve laughed. In those good, bad ol’ days, Dean had still needed a reference book to spit out an exorcism (Sammy already had the thing memorized even then, fuck him anyway). And Cas, well, Cas would have been more likely to slap him upside his fool human head and threaten to throw him back into the Pit than smile at him crosswise and ask, hopefully, if they were going to the farmers’ market this weekend.

(Actually… Cas still sometimes threatened to slap him upside his fool human head. Didn’t seem to bother him that his own head was pretty damned human, now. Hell, he got _dandruff_ last month.)

Dean didn’t think about the details of all that too much, not anymore. He… couldn’t, not really. Not and still wrap his head around the idea without the gut dropping out of him. It was so fucking _much_.

It’d been one thing for Cas to stay because he had to. Or even because he _felt_ like he had to, because the goodest celestial pillar of light wanted to help. Because he believed humans deserved saving from Hell and from damnation on Earth (even when they didn’t). Because the fucking little optimist kept believing in a world that, over and over, had shown that it didn’t believe in him.

But when Jack had stripped the monsterness from the monsters—just grabbed it in his skinny little glowing hands and yanked, squashing the squirming ball of something that made Dean’s stomach turn just to look at it under one Keds-covered foot—he’d turned to Cas, too.

“Are you coming?” he asked Cas, with that familiar, peaceful smile on his face—like he already knew the answer.

Dean’s heart stuttered and stopped. No. _No_. That wasn’t an option. Jack _had_ to go—he wanted to, he already had all these _plans_ for Heaven with its gates closed—but he couldn’t—Cas _couldn’t_ —

Cas smiled back, and reached out to put a hand on Jack’s shoulder, squeezing gently. He looked down at the kid like _he_ was the one with enough power to shove the evil in demons back into hell, leaving the now ex-demons blinking and confused and studying their hands—or, in some cases, their human meat suits, twinned beside them.

“You know I’m not,” Cas said. “Do it.”

Dean exchanged a confused look with Sammy, whose half-scorched eyebrows were still trying to meet in the middle of his face. Do what?

(He didn’t understand, not then. Not yet.)

But Cas did. He looked so pleased and so proud, shoulders back and big even under his trench coat.

He kept smiling even as his whole body lit up from his eyes, from his ears, from his mouth, from every pore—as his own kid ripped everything that made Castiel an Angel of the Lord out of him.

Maybe Dean yelled ‘No’ as he jumped forward—to do what, he didn’t know; maybe he said something that got washed out in the scream of electricity in the air or the whistle and flap of grace. Sammy slammed into him and held him back, arms bands of iron around Dean’s chest.

But in the silence afterwards, the ash flaking down Cas’s back in a sluice like lava made a dark semicircle around his feet.

“Thank you,” Cas said, sweetly, before he crumpled.

Castiel Winchester, the human, didn’t wear a suit and tie and trench coat—that familiar silhouette wasn’t around to stop Dean’s heart from the corner of his eyes, anymore. That didn’t explain why, sometimes, the sight of Cas’s legs wrapped in jeans that were a little too tight, in Dean’s opinion, did it twice as quickly. Why would anyone want to wear jeans that were that _tight?_ But hey, they also didn’t have to go fighting for their fucking lives on days ending in Y anymore, so if Cas wanted to wear skinny jeans, more power and Chuck’s blessing on him.

Not that Dean thought Cas was wearing skinny jeans. There was nothing skinny about—okay, Dean wasn’t going there.

Cas liked sneakers in obnoxiously bright colors, and topped all of that with plain, dark t-shirts. A few weeks ago, Claire had gotten him one in sky blue, and Cas had come out of his room studying himself with a crinkle in his nose, pulling the bottom of it outwards and baring a strip of belly skin. Even as tight as his jeans had been, the waistband hadn’t dug into his hips. Dean had reflexively sucked in his own stomach.

Finally, Cas had said, “I think I enjoy this modal cotton fabric. It is _very_ soft. But light, cool colors don’t suit my complexion,” and Claire had almost dropped the knives she’d been cleaning for laughing so hard. Kid still liked knives, even with nothing occult to use ‘em on anymore.

She was thinking of becoming a bounty hunter for the human kind of monster. Dean kind of didn’t want to admit she’d be good at it.

Dean thought the bright blue had looked pretty nice on Cas, but what the fuck did he know about anyone’s complexion anyway? Claire probably thought the shallow V-neck looked good on him, anyway, ‘cause the next shirt she brought him was cut like that, too. But colored _pink_ , with a red stripe around the edges of the sleeves and collar.

Cas really liked that one.

No, it hadn’t been Cas’s angelness that had made him a weirdo—as evidenced by where Dean finally found him.

Look, Dean still wasn’t a hundred percent sure that the bunker didn’t have a couple of rooms that appeared and disappeared at will. Whose will? Well, that was the question, and it sure as hell wasn’t anyone that Dean trusted. Dean had a fucking fine sense of direction, and even _he_ sometimes still got turned around. Cas was a complete space cadet and sometimes he just _wandered_. What would happen if one of the rooms just kind of… rearranged while Cas was poking around in it?

Sure, Cas was his best friend. And he really was a gentle soul in so many ways—gentler than Dean, gentler than _Sammy_.

But sometimes, Dean saw just… flashes of familiarity that he didn’t like in Cas. The last time he’d seen them, it’d been in the grinning guy with drugs brightening up his eyes and his mouth red-bitten by a dozen girls; Cas in Zachariah’s vision had known Dean, recognized him, but Dean hadn’t known him, not yet.

Not then.

Yeah, _their_ Cas was a sweetheart, and he smiled more easily now than he had in all the years Dean had known him. He wasn’t… _broken_ , not cracked and patched back together to serve in the life, not like that version of Castiel had been.

But Cas also got so damned _frustrated_. He spaced out for hours thinking about something so hard that he forgot where he was or what he was supposed to be doing (or to wait for a green light before he crossed the street). He spent hours reading the news and then wrecked his knuckles on a punching bag because he was so angry about the things that they would never be able to change. His insomnia was worse than either Dean’s or Sam’s—and that was really fucking saying something.

So, yeah. Dean went looking for him, sometimes. When he stepped out of his own room, grumbling and rubbing his eyes to shake away the sticky chains of nightmare, and he saw that the door across the hall from him was open, Dean gave it a tap. It swung open, and he sighed.

Jesus, Cas was such a _slob_ , and it was even worse today than he normally was. His clothes were all over the floor in piles, his bed was unmade, and there were two—three?—duffel bags around. One still had toiletries sticking out, like they’d just gotten back, even though their last cleanup hunt had been weeks ago. There was a half-finished jigsaw puzzle peeking out from underneath a pair of jeans, and at least five mugs plopping around. No ex-angel, though.

Not a good night, then.

Maybe they could make some popcorn and sack out in the recliners with a movie or something. But the library was empty. No-one was sipping grumpily on decaf Lady Grey (“no, not Earl Grey, Dean; the bergamot is less aggressive”) in the kitchen, and there was no one at the gym. Dean hadn’t expected Cas at the heavy bag—he’d stayed off the news networks today—but sometimes, Cas liked to stretch or meditate or something on the gym mats.

The Ford sedan they’d gotten him was still in the garage, too. Okay, that was good. Just ‘cause _Dean_ liked to drive too fast when he was in a mood didn’t mean he thought it was a good idea for Cas.

Dean wasn’t _worried,_ exactly—Cas was a big little former seraphim, and he _was_ getting better at managing those finicky, stupid human emotions—but common sense wasn’t exactly Castiel’s strong suit yet.

_His_ strong suit. _Hah_.

Even Dean could see the rock in his hand and the glass walls around him for that one.

But Cas was still nowhere to be found, and after long enough that Dean knew he was being fucking ridiculous—again with the _Cas is a_ _big little seraph_ deal—he figured, hell. He might as well hit the bathroom, then go back to bed himself.

Dean had been working on at _least_ going around their own home without a weapon on hand, which was a really damned good thing at times. Because _just_ as he was reaching for his buttons to take a piss, someone startled him. And that was, for sure, a shooting offense.

Automatically chucking the only thing to hand—a roll of toilet paper—in the direction of the voice, even before the deep bathroom echo of “Hello, Dean” had faded? A really ineffective substitute.

Cas raised his chin off the back of the tub and gave him an inquisitive look, studying the toilet paper roll he’d caught out of the air with one hand (no angelic reflexes, but Jimmy must’ve been surprisingly athletic, or else Cas’s vessel had picked up a few tricks over the years). He squished it gently, then glanced back up at Dean.

“Are you alright?” he asked, politely.

Dean gaped.

No, Dean sure as shit hadn’t expected to find Cas lying in the bathtub.

Sprawled out full-length. Fully clothed. Belly-down, his bare feet hanging out in the air.

No water.

What the hell?

“Fuck it, Cas,” Dean growled, finally. “How many times we gotta tell you to _lock_ the door if you’re using the bathroom?”

“That’s stupid. Men use _urinals._ They have been urinating in public and in the company of other men for millennia. It is probably the only real advantage of having genitals anterior and external, where they’re otherwise very easily injured,” Cas answered.

Dean scrubbed a hand down his face and choked on a laugh. Shit, laughing was bad, he needed to _not_ encourage Cas. “The fuck is wrong with you? You don’t talk about ‘injuring genitals’ to a guy you just startled in the _bathroom_ ,” he complained.

“ _You_ walked in on _me_ ,” Cas answered, grouchily, slouching back down into the arc of the tub until Dean could only see his pissed-off glare and the mop of sleep-messy black hair planted on top of it all. “I’m also fully clothed, and not urinating, bathing or masturbating. So why _should_ I lock the door?”

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. So fucking much to say, not enough lifetimes or _words_ to explain it. “Yeah, I…” he was _not_ going to touch the masturbating thing. _He_ hadn’t had that conversation with Cas, so that meant that someone _else_ must have, and—okay, _no_. “You know you oughtta fill the tub to soak in it, right?”

“Really? Oh, I wasn’t aware. Are you going to tell me I need to undress to shower, as well? So many _rules_ ,” Cas, the sarcastic little shit, retorted. And he fucking _kicked his legs_ back and forth as he was doing it.

He was just so damned ridiculous that Dean couldn’t keep the smile off his face. He scrubbed at his lips with the heel of his hand, but he couldn’t make the grin go away. “Cas, you’re flopping around in an empty _tub_.”

“It’s _summer_ ,” Cas answered, haughtily. “I woke up, and my room was stifling. The bathtub seemed like it would be pleasantly cool, and it is.”

Dean felt his smile slip, and grabbed at the corners of his control to haul it back up.

It was summer, yeah. But the ambient temperature in the bunker was generally pretty comfortable, both in winter _and_ in summer. It was very comfortable right now.

But if there was one canon rule for the Winchesters, it was that they never, _ever_ called each other on it when they made up some bullshit about their nightmares.

Dean wandered over and sat on the rim of the tub, next to Cas’s legs. Cas glared at him from over the curve of the edge. “Guess it _would_ be pretty nice and cool,” Dean admitted, resting a hand on the edge. Under his palm, it _was_ pleasantly chill. “Tile an’ all.”

The tense rise of Cas’s shoulders relaxed downwards little by little, and he rolled over onto his back in a slow push of muscle; he was wearing one of the bigger shirts he slept in, and a pair of baggy shorts. His legs looked incredibly naked. “Cats seem to enjoy it,” he told Dean.

“You aren’t a cat.”

“Very narrow to think we couldn’t learn a thing or two from them now and again,” Cas answered. “Sunbeams are also _very_ nice to sit in.”

Okay, Dean couldn’t even pretend that he hadn’t seen Cas doing that, because he _had_. He’d thought it was just ‘cause the guy liked a little bit of sunlight. Dean grinned. “Does this mean I should get a laser pointer?”

“If you think I won’t smother you with this, you’re wrong,” Cas said, holding up the roll of toilet paper and waggling it. Threateningly. But then his smile started catching in the corners of his eyes. He raised an eyebrow. “Would you be more annoyed if I didn’t chase the laser pointer—or if I _did?_ ”

Goddammit. “You’re a fucking _menace_ ,” Dean groaned.

Shit, he was kind of laughing, too. So much for not encouraging the asshole.

But Cas was giving him that look, now—too long, too blue, too _naked_ ; like he was looking at something beautiful that Dean hadn’t ever been able to see. Like his gaze had fucking _texture_ , like velvet, and it was running up and down the back of Dean’s spine.

He still wasn’t expecting the touch, even though he saw Cas’s hand move, out of the corner of his eyes. Just fingers resting on top of his fingers; a warm palm and curled joints folding over his, a thumb stroking up and down the soft, bare inside of his wrist. Dean twitched, full-body startled, at the hot pulse of electricity—half awe, half something else. At the unfamiliarity of Cas _touching_. He almost pulled away, but he held himself there by tension and gumption alone. The edge of the tub wasn’t cold against his hand anymore.

When Dean glanced over in a jerky motion of his chin, Cas wasn’t looking into his eyes anymore—he was studying where his hand was resting over Dean’s, his thumb a hot press against where Dean could feel his pulse going—or maybe that was just in his own damned ears. Then Cas lifted his hand away.

“I told myself I would allow myself that when Heaven ended,” he said, softly, as if to himself. Dean’s heart kicked so hard against the inside of his ribs that he thought something hard and cold might have broken.

Fuck. What a tiny, tiny dream.

“But Heaven’s still here,” Dean said, dumbly, as if that was a normal response to his best friend touching his hand while lying around in an empty bathtub.

Cas chuckled, though, as if that was exactly the right answer. But there was something sad and a little too knowing about it. “So it is.” He leaned his head back against the rim of the tub and closed his eyes; it was like the sun starting to dim. Dean could say that with certainty, because again: _world ending_ and _apocalypse_ and all that bullshit.

They breathed together, quietly. Cas looked so peaceful, Dean halfway thought he’d fallen asleep right there—he was breathing so deeply that Dean almost expected to taste his exhales, warm and sweet, mint toothpaste and a midnight sip of cocoa.

When Cas spoke up again, his voice was soft as a secret, because it’d been a long time since Dean had remembered to hear the gravel and rasp of it. “I’m leaving.”

The words were so gentle, Dean almost didn’t hear them for a second. Or maybe he just didn’t want to.

The duffel bags. The clothes in piles. The toiletries.

But he shook away the chill that crawled up his spine at the way Cas was watching him, and frowned. “You’re packing a lot of stuff. When are you coming back?”

Probably angel business again. They’d thought that _Cas_ was kind of annoying about things like having to pee and brush his teeth? Cas was nowhere near as annoying as the rest of those fucking brothers and sisters of his who’d decided to stay on Earth, wingless, and then realized they didn’t know the first damned thing about being human. In comparison, Cas was an outright accommodating sweetheart who liked trying out different fabrics and finding new things to eat.

Cas’s smile tilted sad around the corners of his mouth. “I probably won’t.”

That shook Dean. That shook Dean like Cas had punched him in the face. People not coming back meant things to them—that meant _terrible_ things to them. “Are you…” he swallowed, hard. Shit, _shit_. “Is… is Earth that bad?” Cas was going back to _Heaven?_

But Dean realized even as he said it that that was weird. Wasn’t it? Cas had spent the better part of the last eleven years on this rock, and he hadn’t _liked_ being in Heaven in a long time. Yeah, Jack was up there, but Cas had still _chosen_ to stay. So what the fuck…

“In a way.” This time, it wasn’t a kick to Dean’s ribs—it was a right cross midline to the gut, a solar plexus punch, and Dean couldn’t find the breath to howl before Cas kept talking. “I don’t have my grace anymore.” Cas studied his hands like he might find the last few sparkly bits of it under his fingernails, but Dean didn’t understand what that had to do with anything until he said, “I… forgot how overwhelming feelings are, without that insulation.”

“What’re you going to do?” Why were all these fucking meaningless things coming out of Dean’s mouth?! That wasn’t what was important, that wasn’t what he meant to say, but—he didn’t actually know what he meant to say.

“I’m not sure, yet.” Cas licked his lower lip, a quick little flick, thoughtful. “I’d like to find a career I enjoy. Working with animals? Or plants. Or books. I would like to consider a weekend an indulgence and spend it watching cat videos. Learn how to cook. Have a window box and grow flowers in it that smell nice.” He looked at Dean and smiled, a soft, quiet smile. “I think I want to find out what it’s like to fall in love with someone who loves me back. I’d like that very much.”

The air left the bathroom, left the world.

Cas couldn’t be saying—he couldn’t—but—

“Doesn’t mean you’ll be happy.” What the _fuck_ , Winchester. That was asshole even for him. But Cas couldn’t be saying what Dean thought he was in the first place, and he couldn’t be _leaving_.

Cas’s expression wasn’t insulted, though, or angry. More… amused. He pushed himself a little more upright in his bathtub cradle, then laughed a little as his clothes lost traction and he slid back down again with a high-pitched eek of tile. “You’re not being very encouraging.”

“That’s not—I mean—it’s just—” Dean spluttered, and he couldn’t have even said why his face was burning hot, then cold, clammy. It felt like panic. “You don’t… Jesus, Cas, you don’t have to _go_ , not for any of that!”

“I would for at least one of them.” He paused, and Dean’s heart kicked him in the brain. “The window box, of course. There are no windows in the Bunker,” Cas said, but he was smiling so gently.

“ _Cas—_ goddammit—” How the fuck could he even joke at a time like this? Holy shit, Cas had the _worst_ sense of timing for his humor. The worst.

“You’re right, of course—about not knowing whether that’ll make me happy,” Cas said. There was still nothing that gave away anything in Cas’s voice—nothing but a warm acceptance that made Dean realize with a dizzy, sick rush: Cas had already made up his mind. Maybe he’d been making it up all along. “I’ve seen enough of humanity to know that there aren’t any guarantees. Maybe that’s the point? Maybe that’s what makes it rewarding.” He chuffed out a soft laugh. “But who knows? Maybe I’ll be the one too afraid, the next time.” He sat up, his bare feet squeaking softly on the smooth surface under him. “I’m going back to bed. Thank you for looking for me.”

‘Cause, of course, he knew. He looked for Dean when Dean went gone with his nightmares, too. There were too many years between them not to.

Cas patted the back of Dean’s hand, then stood—pulling himself back to his feet and climbing out of the tub with that surprisingly grace he had sometimes, like even his human muscles knew he’d been something more for a while, screw the cat comparison anyway. His legs had little scatterings of dark hair on them, and he had bony, weird-looking knees.

“You can’t—Cas, we’re _family_ ,” Dean blurted out, the words gushing from him.

But didn’t Dean know better than anyone else that family always left him behind?

Cas looked down at him. His beard shadow was uneven, a little darker and thicker on his upper lip than on his jawline. He’d forgotten to shave the little dimple in the middle of his chin. “We are. We’ll always be. But I’m not…” and for the first time since Dean had walked into the fucking _bathroom_ , Cas actually hesitated. “I don’t think I can keep on loving you like this and not have it break me eventually.”

Dean stared as the words became real.

He didn’t know what he was feeling. Hurricane and lightning. Awe, terror? The inside of his brain was washed white and breathless.

But no shock. No surprise.

_He loves me._ Of course, Dean had _known_ that, he’d known it, but that wasn’t—

Cas sighed, softly, deeply. “I… I will not be broken, Dean. I’ve come too far for that.” He shook his head, hair flopping, unruly, and flattened at the back.

_“Dean, I’m not an angel anymore,_ ” a shattered man had told him, once, a little mad, a little high, laughing because there was nothing to do but laugh until the very end.

A long time ago, another man named Dean had let that happen. Had _watched_ it happen and had done nothing. Had gripped on long past the time when he maybe should have let go. Had done it all without reaching out a hand to hold back.

Castiel had stayed anyway, in that world.

Cas, Dean’s Cas, looked away. “Sam says he’ll take me to the train station tomorrow afternoon. You don’t… I’ll stay out of your way until then.”

None of Dean’s muscles were obeying his command. Probably because he had no fucking idea what he was telling them to do.

Then Cas looked down, and with a crooked smile, held out the roll of toilet paper that Dean had tossed at him. Dean took it because his body remembered how to do _that_ much.

“Don’t,” he croaked, and it sounded so fucking much like begging. But the rest of it came out anyway, rolling off his tongue harsh and hard. “Don’t go. Jesus, Cas, don’t—maybe—”

But then his throat closed off, and he didn’t know what that ‘maybe’ was for.

Cas was waiting for him, though, watching him blue-eyed, silent, from the door. Cas always waited for him. He always had.

Dean swallowed, and honesty bled from his lips. “’Maybe’ is a pretty shitty promise, isn’t it.” This time, it was his own voice that was harsh gravel, deep and dark and taking off his skin.

“It really is,” Cas agreed, but there wasn’t any accusation to it. “That’s why I’m not asking you for any.” And he smiled—sweetly, so damned gently. It was the same way he’d smiled at Jack, when he’d told his own kid to rip out everything that made him an angel and abandon him on this hard dirt rock with a pair of beat-up hunters. “Goodbye, Dean.”

He left Dean sitting on the side of the tub with the past decade knocked out from under him.

Dean couldn’t even really say he hadn’t seen the blow coming.

*_*_*_*

“You know. We could… he, um, doesn’t live far from here,” Sam said, two months later, startling Dean out of his highway dreams somewhere in northern Virginia. “Just a couple of miles? Takoma Park.”

“Who?” Dean asked, absently flicking a wisp of lint off Baby’s steering wheel.

“Um.” Sam trailed off. “I… uh. D’you think we need to stop for gas?” he continued, too loudly.

Dean checked the highway in front of them—bare—and turned and stared at his brother. Sam’s jaw clenched tight, but he didn’t look back.

Fuck, it hadn’t been that long since they’d had to lie for a living. Had Sammy forgotten the trick of keeping his cards close to his chest _that_ quickly? Dean was gonna have to re-educate him before Sammy started dating again; this just wouldn’t _do_.

Dean didn’t forget, though.

Takoma Park. Maryland.

Huh.

*_*_*_*

“Have you seen Castiel lately?” Jody asked him, startling Dean out of his contemplation of her collection of shotguns. And it was a _collection_. She had as many of them as Dean had machetes.

So, okay, maybe Dean had a little bit of a problem, too. He hadn’t realized he had so many until they’d started cleaning the bunker. He still thought that the damned bunker maybe had eaten some of them and was now spitting them back out. Kind of like socks and the washing machine.

Why machetes and not any of Dean’s _other_ knives, though?

“Nah… not in, uh.” Dean hitched up a shoulder and let it fall, the joint of it jerking.

Jody nodded like she understood. “He passed by here on the way to some… I think it was some kind of convention? He looks good. He’s still driving that Ford. Why’d you guys get him a red car, anyway?”

Because Cas liked red. He’d given the Taurus puppy eyes in the used car lot before sighing and turning towards a dark blue older-model Lincoln MKZ next to it. Anyway, the MKZ had smelled like cigarette smoke.

“What’s wrong with a red car?” Dean asked.

“Next to white, most likely to be pulled over.” She shrugged. “And all his ID is fake.”

Dean snorted. “You’ve never been in the car with him, have you. He won’t even change the _radio_ _station_ himself unless he’s at a stop light.”

“ _Distracted driving is very dangerous, Dean,”_ Cas had told him, with his hands firmly on ten and two.

“Guess _one_ of you had to have some sense,” Jody observed, smirking.

Everyone always gave Dean some kind of update.

Everyone always fucking nodded like they understood.

In the beginning, after Cas had left, Dean had been sort of pissed about that. (Sort of? Not just ‘sort of.’) Then, as the months had stretched—six, now—and everyone kept nodding, he’d started to wonder: if everyone understood and Dean didn’t, did that mean everyone else was a fucking asshole?

Or did that mean _Dean_ was?

“You know what? D’you know his address?” Dean asked, and grinned. “Let’s send him a picture.”

Jody blinked at him. “An… actual picture?” She frowned and scratched a hand through her short, iron-grey hair. “I guess… I think I still have that photo printer from when Alex was really into that sort of thing. Why, though? We could just text him one.”

Dean still had the same phone from the Before. The last message Cas had sent him had been not long after they’d swept up the dust of his wings. He’d been asking if Dean wanted a strawberry milkshake or a chocolate one.

“Oh, you know Cas.” Dean smiled, a little wryly. “He’s old-fashioned.”

They both got a laugh out of that.

*_*_*_*

“He lives in a _suburb,_ ” Claire told him, slurping loudly at her root beer float. “He doesn’t even have _knives._ ” Her tone had so much disgust to it that Dean laughed

“Pretty sure he still has his angel blade,” Dean pointed out, swirling a french fry in ketchup. He’d been sort of surprised at how easy Claire had been to talk into taking a picture together. Diner snacks? Done.

“Can’t exactly carry that around under his trench coat anymore. He can’t make it disappear.” But Claire’s eyes were still Cas’s, steel-blue, even if nothing else about her was, and they twinkled in the same way when she was up to mischief. “He still wears that ugly thing, though. _God_ , he’s so weird,” she finished, sounding both delighted and repulsed at the same time.

“What’s he doing with himself, anyway?” Dean realized a second too late that maybe he shouldn’t do that—that they always offered, but he never _asked_. Still, he’d let that question out into the world, and there was no getting it back now.

Claire didn’t seem to notice. She shrugged. “You’ll have to ask _him_.”

*_*_*_*

“You wanted the picture for Castiel? Oh, aren’t you sweet. I keep _telling_ him, I’ll set him up with someone nice!” Donna told them, and Dean put down his beignet. The powdered sugar clogged up the back of his throat, and he felt himself get dizzy from how hard that punched him in the chest. He’d heard it was possible to stop someone’s heart that way.

That was good, though, right? That was good? That was what Cas had wanted. Wasn’t it?

Sam stopped eating his salad. Ordinarily, Dean would have kind of rejoiced about that.

“He’s a business owner now, y’know,” Donna continued, oblivious and laughing. “Real smart ‘bout it, all those foreign language books… sells them to the college kids and the universities. And I know a lot of the cops over in the DC area; they’d be all for an angelface like him.”

“Cas?” Dean scoffed. “That weirdo? You’re kidding, right?”

“Dean,” Sam said, softly, and it felt like his brother was punching him in the chest, too.

“Sure, sure. He’s a bit odd, and no mistake,” Donna told him, unfazed. “Never met a movie he couldn’t get wrong. He’ll prob’ly never know the right thing to say. If you ask if a dress makes you look fat, he’ll say ‘yes’ and not even tell how how pretty the color is with your eyes.”

And then he’d follow it up with something about how being fat had been a status symbol in the 1700s, or something. Yeah, that sounded like Cas already.

“But you know, he calls me whenever he hears on the news somethin’ ‘bout Minnesota, just to let me know he’s thinking of me? Spends an hour telling me ‘bout a documentary ‘bout Andy Warhol. And I barely knew the guy, before.” She laughed. “And who doesn’t love a man who volunteers at an animal shelter, right? That one, he’s just a gentle soul, I guess. Someone who won’t lie,” she told them, both her eyebrows up as if she thought this was something they should not need to be told. “So maybe he’s not ready to try again, yet, but when he is? Not many of those out there, sweet men like that with steel on the inside. Someone’d be damned lucky to have him love them.”

“ _Again?_ ” Both Dean and Sam said that together.

Donna shrugged and, happily, tore her beignet in half, sending sugar flying across her plate. “Threw me, too.” She dunked it in her coffee and took a bite. “But that’s what he said! ‘I think I’ve forgotten how to fall in love with anyone else; I’m trying, but I think it will take me a long while to remember.’” It was a freakily accurate representation of the deliberate way Cas talked—especially coming out of Donna. “I guess it’s sorta romantic? I didn’t even know angels did the dating thing.”

“They don’t,” Sam said, before Dean had to answer. “Hey, how’s Paul?”

“He’s not _Doug_ ,” Donna told them, cheerfully, as if that was all that needed to be said.

Dean guessed it probably was.

*_*_*_*

“Well, _hello,_ Dean!” Rowena crooned. “How _is_ my darling—”

“If you don’t think I’ll shoot you in the face, you’re wrong,” Dean snarled.

“—Samuel?” she finished, blinking wide, innocent eyes at him. “Why, shouldn’t I ask after your dear little brother?”

He was pretty sure she hadn’t been that innocent in, like, three centuries.

He wasn’t gonna send Cas a picture of _her_. Some people were just assholes.

*_*_*_*

“I’m gonna be a week, maybe two,” he told Sam, two months later. “Don’t hold any ragers while I’m gone.”

“Pretty sure no-one says ‘ragers’ anymore.” Sam didn’t look up from his law school textbook. He was playing with his wedding ring again. “Have a good trip.”

Dean thought that was gonna be it, that he was gonna get away scot-free, but just before the bunker door closed behind him, Sammy sounded all too pleased to yell, “Say hi to Cas for me!”

Okay, some people were _definitely_ assholes.

*_*_*_*

Cas had a window box, but he’d filled it with herbs rather than flowers. Basil was spilling over the edge of it; rosemary was tall and smelled good in the middle. Dean thought the little plants at the front, small leaves mounding over the box, might be thyme. The lawn was the size of a postage stamp, but the grass that filled it was very green, and the whole house was bright blue with white trim around the windows and the doors. There wasn’t a porch to speak of, but the little overhang that led up to the front door had a bamboo wind chime hanging from it with a butterfly dangling from the cord in the center. Dean touched it with a finger, and it clattered and sang, sweeter than he’d expected.

It all looked… cheerful.

The house didn’t have a garage; that same warm, red Ford Taurus they’d gotten secondhand for Cas sat in the open driveway. The driveway led up to a small, rickety-looking shed with a sheet metal roof, a bike rack underneath a little overhang that looked stapled on as much as anything. Someone had tried to cheer it up by painting the whole thing bright yellow. The fence beside it, bordering the house next door, looked like it was trying to keep the shed out rather than anything else in.

The doorbell was striped yellow and black with tiny metal wings, and Dean snorted. The welcome mat—a real goddamned welcome mat—said, in loopy script, “Honey, I’m Home!”

“Still with the bees, Cas?” Dean muttered, rolling his eyes. Then he looked around to make sure nothing was, y’know, actually _buzzing_ nearby. There wasn’t. He wouldn’t have put it past the guy, though.

It was a fucking dumb thing to realize that the last time Dean had had to ring anyone’s doorbell, he’d still been a hunter, he’d still been doing interviews in a feeb suit, and the world—like always—had been ending.

It wasn’t ending anymore.

He wasn’t fake FBI anymore. He wasn’t even a _hunter_ anymore.

Just like Cas wasn’t an angel anymore.

Maybe they’d both fallen, somehow.

He was just… Dean, now. He was a dumbass mechanic with a GED who lived in an underground bunker in Kansas, and, goddammit, yeah, he was probably bisexual, and _fuck anyone_ who had a problem with that, anyway.

No. Nope, that wasn’t right.

Fuck _Dean_ for having a problem with it for so goddamned long.

As the door started to come open, Dean flapped one hand in a completely dorky little wave, the motion of it startling him even before the door was completely cracked. “Hiya, uh. Hi.”

Cas blinked at him.

He was wearing blue jeans with a flowery patch edged in red stitching covering one knee, and a short-sleeved, light purple button-up done up just one button too high against his neck. He had tan lines to just above his elbow, making a gradient from creamy pale at his sleeves to gold at his forearms. He was wearing a _watch_.

“ _Dean_ ,” Cas murmured, and it was like hearing the Impala purr after a good tuneup. He didn’t look the least bit surprised. “I got your pictures.”

Then, because Cas had always had so much of an easier time with words than Dean, he said, immediately, bluntly, without a flinch, “I missed you.”

The hug was familiar. It was so familiar, Dean’s chest heaved with it, and he clutched too tightly, tightly enough that breath and bone squeaked. Or maybe that was just Cas laughing, softly, shaking in his arms. He didn’t try to tell anyone it wasn’t a chick-flick moment. They held it too long, Cas’s chin tucked over his shoulder and his jaw against Dean’s neck. _Fuck_ , that felt good.

“You’re wearing aftershave,” Cas said, and Dean wasn’t sure why he felt like blushing about that, ‘cause yeah, it was true, so what? But before he could come up with an answer, Cas asked, “Where’s Sam?” into his ear, craning his head to look past him.

“Uh. He’s… he’s at home.” Dean swallowed. “He’s fine! He’s fine,” he jumped in as Cas’s eyes got wide and alarmed, and he stepped back, letting them come unstuck. “I, uh, it’s just me.”

There was a speckle or two of frost in the dark hair at Cas’s temples that Dean didn’t remember. He had eyebags under his blue eyes and lines at the corners of them. The jeans were flattering as hell, and the way he was wearing that shirt really wasn’t.

He was so fucking _beautiful_.

Dean let himself think it. He let himself turn it over in his hands, poke it, and realize that no matter how often he poked it and prodded it and kicked at it, it’d still be true.

No. No, that wasn’t right.

_He’d_ still think it was true.

Yeah.

So for the first time in his entire goddamned life, Dean really let himself _look_. Up and down, over shoulders broader than he remembered, a sleeker waist, because he was very sure that Cas’s outfits had never been that tight before. He hadn’t forgotten the way Cas’s thighs made pants into a statement, and the way he moved his chin turned a tie into a sex toy.

Wait, okay, he wasn’t wearing a tie, and Dean’s brain had gone _right_ into the gutter, do not pass go, hadn’t it. He dropped his gaze to the cement under his feet—Cas wasn’t wearing his funky, colorful sneakers; he wasn’t even wearing _shoes,_ just a pair of socks—

Wait.

“Your socks don’t match,” Dean blurted.

Cas looked down and wiggled his toes on the welcome mat, in their not-matching socks—the one on his right foot was green, and the one on his left foot was grey but looked like it had panda bears on it, and Dean almost fucking _giggled_ again. When he looked up, Cas was looking straight into his face and smiling.

Maybe he was seeing something there that Dean didn’t know he was showing, because Cas’s smile at him was soft and easy and gentle, and a whole fucking lot better than he deserved.

“I know. I enjoy it when people notice my socks,” Cas answered, warmly, like Dean had done something really right for once in his whole damned life. “It means they’re paying attention.”

Yeah, still a weirdo.

But paying attention to Cas had never exactly been Dean’s goddamned problem. Never. What he did with it, though, that was another story.

(Mostly, Dean had just drunk too much, played his music too loud, and gone and killed things, to be honest. In pretty much that order. It’d worked, for a while.)

“How long are you going to be in town for?” Cas asked, softly. “Maybe we could catch up.”

Dean looked at him—the angel who’d fallen from Heaven for him, once, then again and again—and crushed the excuses that came automatically to his lips under his boot heel. He wanted to squirm under the patient amusement in Cas’s gaze, but the fact that Cas so clearly expected him to lie made the truth come spurting out. “I, uh…. I guess that depends on you, mostly. I’m here for, um. For you.”

Cas’s smile faded until he was all blue eyes and an old, quiet, sad little hope.

Of all of them, Cas was the one who never forgot how to hope.

Dean swallowed, and rocked back on his heels, but he didn’t let himself step back. He didn’t let himself stuff his hands into his pockets. He didn’t let himself _run._ “I, um. I’m not afraid anymore. If…”

If.

All this time. All this goddamned time. A year. A _decade_.

This time, Cas was the one who looked away first.

For the first goddamned time, he looked away first, and Dean’s stomach nosedived over a cliff.

“You’re not? Really?” Cas muttered, and peeked back up at Dean with one canted eyebrow and a hint of a squint. “Because I’m terrified.”

And that answered so many questions that Dean hadn’t known how to ask. He blew out a breath that felt like he’d been inhaling for the past year. “Oh thank fucking God,” Dean stumbled out in a rush, half a laugh. “Yeah. Me too.”

“Hmm. We’ve got to work on your lying, Dean,” Castiel told him, gravely, with a smile winking across the corners of his mouth. “It’s a terrible habit.”

Dean snorted, softly. “Dude, pretty sure it’s a lifetime too late for that.”

“I don’t think there’s any such thing as ‘too late,’” Cas told him. “You’re here, aren’t you?” And while Dean was still processing how _that_ made him feel, Cas added, “Come in.” He tilted his head in invitation towards the open doorway, and his expression was so damned _shy_. “Do you want something to eat? I’m still working on some things, but I’ve learned to cook.”

Dean grinned, shaky. Happy. “Way to a man’s heart?” he teased, flirty in a way he’d kind of forgotten he knew how to be, and it didn’t quite make it there in the beginning. But the tremor in it straightened out by the time he got to the end.

Cas smiled back at him, soft and certain. “Yes,” he said, in a soft rumble of spring thunder. “Yes, I certainly hope so.”

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> I will likely be on a posting hiatus for a little bit, but it's hopefully for a good reason: [amireal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amireal/works) and I completed our newest collab, but editing the160K that we wrote in, quite literally, three weeks is going to be an undertaking! I don't know when we're going to start posting it, but I hope you enjoy it when we do!
> 
> Thank you for reading, and if you would like to fuss about Destiel (or weep about S15) with like-minded folk, please come join us in the [Profound Bond Discord Server](https://discord.gg/profoundbond)!


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